KPAX I Saw The CIA By The Sea
by Atomdancerrr
Summary: Based on a line from the 3rd K-PAX book. 2 CIA Agents are sent to get a promise from prot that he won't teach anyone to mirror beam. They suspect he's a Lunatic who discovered something about the laws of physics. But prot is much more than they expected!


Consider this an enthusiastic advertisement for the original four professional K-PAX books out in print and the one that is being worked on now. The real Gene Brewer has also written many other fine works including, Watson's God" and "Ben and I" (not to be confused with the Children's story, "Ben and Me.") The later is a very Human and powerful story of redemption and forgiveness. Gene Brewer is also working on getting published a wonderful story called, "Becoming Human" with a hero every bit as gentle and vulnerable as prot.

K-PAX I saw the CIA by the Sea

by

8-) Elizabeth Hensley

with love for

Both Gene Brewers

for imitation is the

sincerest form of flattery.

My name is Thomas Cassaway. I'm a CIA Agent.

Usually being a CIA Agent is not at all like the X Files. We go after drug dealers most of the time and occasionally terrorists. If fact I had never in my life even heard of an Agent being ordered to investigate a possible Alien visitation. Not ever. Until that one-day!"

I was finishing up some paperwork on a crack dealer a bit bored but not to the point of suffering much when my Supervisor called me into her office. She was grinning. So was my sometimes Partner, Danny Rover. I thought to myself, what the...?"

She explained, "Thomas, have you ever believed the Truth is out there?"

I stared at her surprised, I grumbled. "That is kind of a weird question to ask!"

She laughed, "You are now official members of our new X File's division."

I stared at her again, "What?" I glanced at the calendar on her wall. _It __wasn't__ anywhere near April 1st. It wasn't even April! _

She grinned again and flicked on the VCR, "Take a look at this."

So Danny and I watched the now famous videotape of the Mental Patient, prot who claims to be an Alien, seemingly disappearing suddenly in a flash of light on a television talk show and reappearing instantaneously on the other side of the studio. "Whoa!" Danny said, "Replay that!"

Alison did.

We stared. _We could not believe our eyes! _

Alison said, "I want you to go interview this Man, if he IS a Man, and get him to sign a paper promising not to teach anyone to do that. I have orders from much higher up than you would believe! I am however not allowed to say HOW high up. Certain People want to stay reelectble!"

Danny asked, "You want him to sign a paper promising not to teach ANYONE? Our side too?"

Alison nodded, "You betcha! We aren't ready for this kind of thing! This seems as good a time as any to instigate a REAL Prime Directive even if we are the ones on the bottom instead of the top."

I whistled, "He can't possibly be a real Alien!"

Danny frowned, "How would we KNOW? I mean what would a real Alien look or act like?"

Alison said, "You also have a couple of other factors to the assignment. Number 1 of course we want to make sure he has no violent or dishonest goals. It doesn't matter if he is an Alien, or not. With that ability he could beam into locked places, steal anything and beam out again. In fact he could beam People out into Space! In fact his report about Earth said he did just exactly that to a hunter because he felt sorry for the Deer. The Man doesn't see any difference in importance between us and other Animals. He's a strict vegetarian and considers hunting murder and the eating of all flesh cannibalism."

I sighed, "You want us to bring him in?"

Alison said, "We've been ordered not to and fingers are crossed hoping the Family of the missing Man doesn't put two and two together about why their Family Member disappeared one day without a trace and try to get prot charged with murder. That would open up a can of Worms we don't want to deal with, especially if it turns out he is a real Alien, or there is any possibility he is."

I muttered, "I hope he doesn't' get mad at us!"

Alison shook her head, "He seems a bit perturbed with how we are treating the other Beings on Earth and the Planet itself. He doesn't think we are going to survive. But he doesn't seem particularly dangerous if you aren't harming cute, little Animals. I read the book his Shrink wrote, "K-PAX" named after the Planet he says he comes from. It seems he was a very docile and cooperative Patient. He made friends with the Orderlies, He would take strong Antipsychotic medicine without a peep of protest. Her escaped from the hospital to go inspect Norway and some other Northen countries but came back on how own just in time for therapy. He apparently likes living in a mental hospital, being treated like Mental Patient and is loved by the other Patients.

Danny Rover shook his head in puzzlement. "He could go anywhere on Earth and he wants to live in a mental hospital? Maybe that proves he IS just crazy!"

Alison shook her head, "Not necessarily. Think about it. They feed him. They shelter him. They pay attention to him and seem to really like him. He's made friends there. It's not like he's trapped, so that gets rid of the worst thing about living in a mental hospital; the confinement. "

Danny said, "But they drugged him!'

Alison shrugged, "Maybe his metabolism is so alien it didn't bother him. Maybe he liked the sedation. But there is another factor, a weird one. It seems he is using a Human named Robert Porter as a willing Host. The Man is catatonic and this is actually only one of prot's many trips to Earth. All of them seem to involve attempts to help or simply be sociable with his Host. For instance he came back this time for no other reason than to help his Friend get over his catatonia. Maybe he thought the medication would help his Friend."

I stared at her, "You said _"willing_ Host?"

She nodded, "According to the book his Psychiatrist wrote, prot and Robert Porter have been Friends off and on since Robert was six years old and met prot somehow at his Father's funeral. His official diagnosis is, Multiple Personality Disorder. They are calling that Dissociative Identity Disorder these days. But if that is all there is too it how did Robert Porter's crazy Alternate Persona learn to flash across a stage in less than a second and if he can really do it, Alien or not, this Planet is in trouble if how he does it gets out!"

Danny said, "So this poor Human may actually have an Alien Worm in his gut or brain and he likes it?'

Alison nodded, "Or prot may be incorporeal." Or he may be something we can't comprehend or have any concept of. We can't know. He is being understandably coy about explaining it. I can't say I blame him."

I said, "or he may just be a crazy Human who discovered a law of physics the rest of us never noticed!"

Alison shook her head, "That would almost be more fantastic and scary than any other possibility! If he can do it some other Person may figure out how to do it too and that Person may not be as harmless as prot!"

"_If _prot is harmless!" _I was wondering what it was like for that poor hunter!_

She put her finger to her lips, "Shush!"

New York isn't far from Washington. It was nice to have an assignment that would have me back with my Family in a few hours for a change. But I never thought I would be for investigating an "Alien!"

We spent the first day of the assignment reading, "K-PAX and studying prot's "report about EARTH" and his TV appearance. Then the next day we were off to Manhattan.

We both felt very nervous entering a mental hospital. I commented, "Whew! This gives me the creeps! I think his location of residence is scarier than what he may be!"

Danny said, "would you rather it were his flying saucer?"

I shrugged, "Good question! At least he doesn't have a saucer parked on the lawn of the mental hospital!"

But to our disappointment prot was gone!

As his Psychiatrist put it, "I haven't seen him."

Apparently the Alien part of Robert Porter had left for Outer Space leaving behind only the Human half who was clueless as to how to mirror beam.

Later we found out he hadn't left Earth at all. Instead he was wandering about the Earth collecting Specimens to take back his PLANET. But at the time we thought he was gone permanently. So we had nothing to report to Alison or her secret higher up. We thought that was the end of the matter. We took a ribbing from the other Agents and a few years passed.

Then, to our surprise we got a second chance. One day Alison called us in her office, "Prot is back at the mental hospital!" She said.

_ah oh!_

So back to the mental hospital we went!

The Patients this time around were even weirder than the ones who were there before! One young Man kept running around the lawn flapping his arms trying to take off! A Transvestite sat at a lawn chair talking to a Man wearing a Clown suit with a unicycle parked next to him. Travesties are not that unusual but when he got up to go to the "Little Girls room" we could see by his belly and the way he was moving he seemed pregnant! One Patient was dancing around the lawn like he was in a ballet.

"Weird!' I said,

I nodded, "the Alien may be the most normal one!"

Danny nodded.

It turned out to be so, sort of. A couple of Orderlies had been sent to find him and soon he came out of the building dressed normally in tennis shoes, flannel pants and a blue gene style jacket. The weirdest thing he was wearing if you could even call it weird was his perfectly normal looking sunglasses. He moved towards us with coordinated moves and a friendly smile on his face. He shook our hands firmly and sat down at the lawn chair next to the Guy with the unicycle and the Transvestite who had just returned. He introduced the Guy with the unicycle as, Milton and the Transvestite as, Lou. Then he started pointing out all the other Patients and introducing them by name and telling us all about them.

It was more information than we cared to have about a subject off the point of our mission, but it indicated a hopeful attitude of cooperation.

To keep it official we showed him our badges. He looked at them with a broad grin on his face. We get two kinds of People who look at our badges. The kind who doesn't trust we are really CIA Agents and want to check to make certain and the kind who look at them out of curiosity. I could tell this "Alien" was the second kind. I asked, "Is there somewhere we can go in private?"

Prot shrugged, "There are places we can go that will give us a LEETLE more privacy. But this IS a mental hospital, remember? One of the things I like about it is we are all watched all the time. Nothing bad can happen because If one of you carnivorous Apes starts some act of violence my big buddies Roman or Navorro or one of the others jumps in and puts a stop to it with a nice sedative and a strait jacket if necessary. Plus all the Humans you see around you have been screened for violent tendencies. If they have them they are not allowed off the 4th floor. Between that and our nice wall protecting us from the unscreened Humans outside. I feel very safe here, a lot safer than I felt anywhere else on EARTH!" He gave us a broad grin. "I am enjoying my stay here immensely!" He frowned. "I am sorry you desire privacy."

We definitely had none. In fact most of the other Patients were gathering around our table staring and listening and so were the Orderlies and some of the Nurses and Doctors. The "pregnant" Transvestite said, "Don't you be hurting our prot! He may be an alien but he is one of us and we won't let you harm him!"

The Ballet dancer added" Yes! We like our prot! You try to take him out of here we will fight you tooth and nail!"

He put out his fists and kick boxed to show what it was he would do to us if we hurt our study subject! shuddered, I did not want to get in a fight with a ballet dancer! Say what you will about them being sissies. They ain't! They have to be in superb physical shape to dance the way they do and lift their Partners seemingly effortlessly high above their heads while dancing as if light as feathers on their toes! I train as much as required but quite frankly I hadn't half his muscles, agility or stamina! I am not even ashamed to say that. Neither did anyone else in our division!

Then one of the Orderlies said, "Usually I wouldn't be condoning one of our Patients threatening violence but this time I'm on his side!"

Everyone else nodded including the Nurses and the Doctors!

I said quickly, "Hold it Folks! We aren't going to hurt prot. We just want to ask him some questions and make him promise not to teach anyone how to mirror beam. Remember Star Trek's prime directive? My Boss thinks it's a VERY good idea so we are going to make sure prot follows it."

Prot stood up and said, Don't worry Folks! Robert and I will be OK. You know darn well I could leave them very quickly if I had to. But they aren't going to be rude or anything like that, are you?" He stared firmly at us.

We vehemently nodded. _It was like he had taken control of the interview. I __don't__ know how but he did it._

At those words, the other Patients sort of wandered off but Danny and I still felt uncomfortable. Prot stared at us a thoughtful and a sympathetic look on his face. Finally he says, "I can take us some place out of the hospital where you will feel more comfortable."

My heart started pounding. _If he had meant this to reassure me it had just the opposite effect! _

But Danny looked like prot had just told him he had just won the lottery! "Yay! Go for it!" He said. "Where can you take us?"

Prot gazed at us with that smile of his. Gently he said to us, "well, where would you like to go? It has to be somewhere here on EARTH. I can't take you off WORLD without clearing it ahead of time. And I can't do that on EARTH. It is not like there is really such a thing as subspace radio like on star trek. I am out of contact with my home WORLD until I go back there using a prearranged window." But I can take you anywhere on EARTH. So, where would you like to go?"

My Partner didn't even hesitate. He said, "Hawaii!"

Prot said, "It is a big island chain. What part?"

Again Danny did not hesitate. "Waikiki beach!"

My weird subject grinned and said, "Okeydokey but you have to buy me a bunch of those Pina Coladas. I don't care if they have alcohol or are just virgin. It is the coconut taste I want. But if you want to make them alcohol you can use it to "loosen my tongue" as you would put it, not that you will really get anything out of me that way than you would with me completely sober. But it might make you feel better to try. Quite frankly I'll tell you lots of stuff but I won't tell you how to mirror beam no matter how you drug me. But that's what you didn't want to know anyway."

I said, "Good! That's right! That's the main thing. We have to ask you is not to tell ANYONE in EARTH how to do that, including us. That is our orders and they sure make sense to both of us. Sometimes we have to obey orders we hate but not this time. We are totally for these!"

Prot grinned, "Me too!"

He reached in his pocket and pulled out the same mirror and flashlight he had used on the talk show. He caught our image and his own in the mirror, held the flashlight over his shoulder and flashed it at the mirror.

We were in Waikiki beach! It was that sudden!"

I sank to the sand in a half faint and Danny said, "Whoa!" and joined me in the sand." Prot grinned at us, and bent down and reached out his hands to help us up. He said, "The last time I reached down to help someone up like this it earned me free room and board at my favorite place on EARTH. Of course robert is trying to pay off a bunch of medical bills but to me it was free and very welcome. He was writing a book about me to pay those bills and to tell the world what it was like having me. Now that he has disappeared again I wonder if it will ever be finished?" Prot got a sad look in his face. That clinched it for me I could tell he really DID love his host. This made me feel much better. _I was reassured that hoards of __A__liens __weren't__ coming here to turn us into puppets. If they did come __we'd__ have __F__riends not __M__asters. ''._

I said, "well prot would you like that drink now?"

He swallowed and nodded, "gene got me drunk once to see if we could coax robert out. I tried it once before too. It didn't work. But it was fun. I don't need to get drunk though if you are satisfied with my promise to talk freely about stuff anyway.'

We smiled at him and pointed to a tiki bar.

In a few minutes our Alien was sitting on the sand in his boxers drinking his virgin Pina Colada digging his toes in the sand and gazing happily at the "big, big water." We sat down next to him but we were not allowed to strip due to us being on duty.

He grinned at us and said, "You know you look ri DIC culous sitting there in spy clothes!"

I told him, "We feel ridiculous. But we aren't allowed to go informal while on duty."

Prot grinned some more. We realized he hadn't laughed once but he did seem to be enjoying himself. "Aren't you guys supposed to be good at disguises and going under cover? But you guys are ab so LUTEly lousy at it! Even extremely autistic jerry on our third floor could tell you are connected some way to the government!" He grinned broadly, "what would james bond do?"

Danny laughed, "James Bond wouldn't be here with you, prot. He would have a gorgeous lady alien and after martinis, "shaken no stirred" not Pina Coladas we'd end up back at a suite having passionate sex."

Prot shook his head, "Not with a dremer you would! The only way sex is passionate to us is it brings up strong feelings of dread. It hurts!"

I asked, "Then how come you aren't going extinct?"

Quietly prot said, "We are."

I said, "Oh NO prot! I am so sorry!"

He shrugged, "No sweat. Our life spans are about a thousand of your years. There are still enough of us having at least one kid we'll be around we estimate about another 50 thousand of your years yet. By then you guys will have destroyed your selves first."

I remembered, prot had mentioned on the talk show he didn't think we would survive." So I said, "So you think we are both going extinct? Us from over population and aggression and your Planet from none?"

Prot nodded. "I wish it wouldn't happen of course. I have an idea. It's a crazy idea but then I'm legitimately a mental patient. It isn't just for robert's sake you know. I'm going to take some EARTH beings with me to K-PAX including a few humans and see what happens."

I was shocked, "you are going to abduct some of us!"

Prot shook his head, "Now thomas do you even think I would have to abduct humans against their will? When I announced this to your WORLD the heartrendingly hard part I'm going through is picking out who gets to go and who ends up stuck here. And it certainly isn't going to be all humans either I plan to take mostly other EARTH beings who are more interesting to me. I will take robert and giselle and the kid and Oxeye Daisy of course if they want to go and I am pretty sure they will."

Danny nodded, "I'm pretty sure they will too. So you plan to take Humans to K-PAX so if we blow ourselves up here some of us will survive there? Thank you! But does that solve your People's problem?"

"Being's problem, danny," prot corrected. "We are not people, we are beings." He stared at his drink and shrugged, "I don't know actually. I just sense somehow if I take humans to my home WORLD something interesting will happen, just what I don't know. At least it is highly likely we will get some more hosts out of you."

I suggested, "Maybe we could study dremer biology and come up with some way to make sex not hurt for you."

Prot nodded and took a sip, "Maybe."

Danny asked, "Prot what exactly are you and where are you in Robert's body?"

Prot said, "I hope you will understand if I don't answer that one completely. It is a pretty personal question. Even robin doesn't know. For one thing I lack the words to tell you in english or any human tongue. Anything I said would give you a really incorrect idea so it is better I don't say much. I do have a lot of myself in robert's gut. When humans go to K-PAX gradually some of us will probably trust you guys a little more and put in the years it will take to teach you and you are right maybe you guys can come up with something we haven't thought of concerning our reproductive problem. You have indeed thought up so very many things we haven't thought up: beds, TV shows, fiction, carnivorousness." He frowned at that last one. "Some of your ideas are horrible but some are fun and useful. Selective breeding for instance. We pretty much take our food as it comes. We never thought to select in any way for favorable traits. We just barely invented agriculture and even that consists of helping to replant the seeds of one single herb. The rest of our food plants come up on their own without any help at all from us."

I asked, "What was so special about that particular herb?"

Prot grimaced, "Kind of ironically it is the herb that is leading to our extinction. It stops us from going into heat so we don't have to do our painful sex. It is also very calming like your thorazine, which I dearly love. "

Danny glanced at me. _I kn__e__w he was thinking of what Alison had said years ago about maybe prot liking the sedation."_

Prot continued, "Well let's hope humans come up with something. I just wish MINE would start talking to me again!" This is twice he's done this to me! I told gino I was sure he would be back but quite frankly I just didn't want to worry giselle. I'm really not so sure."

Prot finished his drink and Danny ran to get him another. We had mutually decided on keeping them virgin since the thought of drunk mirror beaming terrified us, but still the act of having a constant supply of drinks might keep prot talking. Rather that was why, or not, he certainly did keep talking.

Prot explained. "I want my little robin back! I have just got to get him off this lousy WORLD! If I get him off of here maybe then he'll stop this disappearing act of his. and of course that means taking giselle and Gene JR and oxeye daisy too. I don't mind taking them. I like them too. And I already know giselle wants to go and of course that wonderful dog, oxeye daisy and robin's little squirt will go where mommy and daddy go."

I asked, "just what do you dremers feel for your hosts?"

Prot took another drink and looked sad. Then he said. "We dremers don't have family or gods or governments or even sports teams to be loyal to. All we have are our hosts. When robert got sick and couldn't or wouldn't talk to me anymore I felt so bad I lack the words to describe it! The closest I can describe is how eve must have felt when cain killed able and was sent away. Not only had her god quit talking to her and kicked them out of the happy and beautiful home but now both her sons were also gone. I now had nobody! I admit being in complete control WAS fun for a short time. The situation had some compensations. I had freedom to explore the EARTH in ways I could not before and I took full advantage of it. I could go anywhere and see anything I chose to as long as I liked. My host had been tied down with family responsibilities and since I have to be inside of him periodically to feed I had been limited in my trips to a few hours or as long as I could stand to be without food which isn't long when I'm well. When your mental health care system first took me into custody I was anorexic from homesickness and abandonment by host but I am completely over that by now. He grinned. "I LIVE to eat! Before, robert had family responsibilities so he could seldom go with me to explore. I didn't know why but suddenly he didn't care where we went or for how long as long as we did not go back to the house and family he had loved before. I didn't know until gino told me that his family had been tortured and killed. No wonder robert did the only thing HE could to escape from this psychotic PLANET! But suddenly, suddenly I was free to go anywhere I wanted to and stay as long as I liked. So there was that. But he wouldn't or couldn't talk to me. So it was horrible! I had never known loneliness like this before! Never! Exploring your beautiful PLANET distracted me from our tragedy and the mystery because I didn't even know what had happened due to robert's silence. All I knew is we were no allowed to go back to the house he would hardly leave before and he didn't even speak to me about that. It is just I had been in him so long I can read the way he tensed us up when I suggested going back to the house. I could tell he was absoLUTEly terrified to go home! So I didn't drag him there. I dragged him to the rest of the WORLD instead for as long as I liked and that was ok with him while before it had not been."

Danny asked, "You mean you listened to your host about his wishes?

Prot nodded, "Of course! What the host wants is what the host gets. Survival of the fittest favors dremers who can keep their hosts happy. When we come in we flood our host's gut brain and skull brain with all sorts of neat hormones, endorphins and serotonin and oxytocin and many you haven't even figured out yet, so they can't help but love us, but what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. We also get bathed in the same chemical soup so we can' t help but love us hosts back, just as much. We are usually very good at helping our hosts stay happy and healthy because their happiness and healthiness' keeps us happy and healthy, but mine wasn't either happy or healthy and he was dragging me down with him!" Prot frowned here and stared at the sand. "Hence I was very, very, VERY grateful to be committed! He was barely alive and only that because I did all our seeking of food and eating, breathing and even pooping and peeing for him, and sleeping. At first I forced myself to sleep much more than I needed to, hoping it would help his brain buffer and deal with whatever had happened. But after a few weeks of this I gave up and went back my usual two-hour schedule. I couldn't get him to say one word to me! And he didn't, not for almost five years! I could tell he was still alive. He was what gino calls, ''catatonic' except he was moving because I was acting as his unhappy and lonely puppet master. It was just as horrible a science fiction horror movie plot for me as it seems to you. I did NOT like it at all!" Prot frowned.

_I actually felt compassion for his weird situation._ Sympathetically I asked, "He said nothing for five years?"

Prot grimaced. "In all that time he said one thing. One December 24th at Midnight he said, 'Merry Christmas.' That was like a miracle except I don't believe in miracles. But you don't know how much hope it gave me! My robin was still alive somewhere inside of us enough to speak at least some of the time!"

Prot continued, "By then I was trying to get committed for robert's sake plus a mental hospital makes a great place to finish my report. I am waterproof but paper is not. But after a few weeks at my first mental hospital I woke up one morning and realized I was actually happy again. The mental hospital was helping me too. It had become my substitute host. It was feeding me, sheltering me, and telling me what to do, just like having a working host, or perhaps the ECT they were giving us was actually helping. Anyway I didn't mind it. They use muscle relaxants and anesthesia these days. The patients don't jerk around like jack nicholson in cuckoo's nest. And then when they transferred me to mpi, dr. brewer has substituted for robert talking to me and being my friend. Gino asked me as many questions about K-PAX as robert used to. That helped so much with my homesickness. The medication helped too. It relieved a lot of my anxiety at being surrounded by unpredictable and often violent carnivores. And the other patients, orderlies, and nurses at mpi had become friends to me a whole lot more even than the other beings on K-PAX where we are more emotionally attached.

He stared at us with those sun-glassed eyes of his. "You must realize that if I didn't care about robin I would not have come back. This trip's not an information-gathering trip and we don't need humans that much. I learned all I cared to learn last time. I hate being here! I came back only to help my friend along with the help of dr. gene brewer. He is a great psychiatrist! I tease him but really he is VERY good!" He grinned here one of the biggest grins I have ever seen in my life.

I asked, "prot I should ask you. On your trips here have you ever taken any other hosts?

prot nodded, "There was one wonderful trip to disney world. Again I could not get robert to go with me. He was too intent on finishing High School. I was around 70 at the time, the emotional and physical equivalent of 17. I was feeling adventurous and I had heard about disney world. I just HAD to go! It reminded me of a primitive version of our libraries and is another fascinating and eerie way you are like us just much more violent and primitive. I didn't expect to be able to stay more than an hour or two, but glory be, in tomorrow land I spied a potential new friend and food supply. He was a trekker. I could tell that by the star trek T shirt. It said, 'He's dead jim. You grab his tricorder. I'll get his wallet.' After I got through my amusement I noticed from his smell that he was a Vegan. I also could smell two bananas in his backpack! Perfect if I could get him to accept me! My chances of that were made much greater by the fact I could tell, number one he was alone and number two, it was obvious he was unhappy about it. Some expected partner apparently had failed to show up. Later I found out it was his buddies from his work place a motorcycle shop in daytona. I never did find out what happened to them. I hope their failure to come was not due to something terrible. How ever wonderful something is it is always much less wonderful alone, a fact true for both humans and dremers. Well, we both could use some company and we could provide it to each other!

"I eased in to him by the easiest method which is straight up his you know what. I attached myself to the neurons in his gut and spread out, organizing them into a sentient neural net I could use. Gut brains never mind that. The decisive moment as to whether I could use a being as a host or not comes right after. I went up his spine and interfaced with his skull brain to see what _that_ brain would feel about me."

"Hi there! I'm prot."

"What the *!* I'm hearing things!

"No. You aren't." I told him cheerfully, "I'm an alien and I'm lonely and hungry. Feed me and I'll keep you company while you are here and tell you lots of fun and interesting stuff about other WORLDS in our shared GALAXY."

"Are you taking over the planet?"

I explained, "Just little old moi by myself? It would be a bit of a stretch! No. I have designs on those bananas in your back pack but the PLANET will just have to watch out for itself."

"How come I can't see you?"

I explained, "I could make you see me but let's ease into that. I'm really inside of you interfacing with the aural processors in your brain. I'm harmless and will leave if you don't want me. But I'm very hungry! Would you at least feed me first, please?"

"Ah! How do I feed you!"

Again I explained, "Just eat those nanas yourself and I'll suckle my share of fructose right out of you."

He said skeptically, "You sure don't sound like an alien!'

Amused I asked him, "And what do you think an alien should sound like?"

He said firmly, "You would use better english!"

I quipped, "It is mr. spock's mommy who is the english teacher!"

He started laughing and I knew I had a new friend to explore disney world with, and lunch!"

Then prot frowned and finished his second drink and said, "I should have kept in contact with him. Maybe he could have helped us when robert got in trouble. But I was just a teenager. Teenagers don't think of the future. I thought robert porter would be all the host I ever needed. I wasn't even thinking of the sad fact you humans live heartbreakingly short lives. Even on K-PAX we'll no sooner get you broken in like an old comfortable shoe when you will up and die on us of old age and leave us down in the dumps and up the crick without paddle. I guess we should try and do something about that. At the same time like you said you will most likely be trying to figure out how to keep us from going extinct, we should be trying to figure out how to extend your life span. Tit for tat, I'd say. A fair trade."

_My mind was reeling at all this!_ "You are going to try and extend our life spans as well as plan to use us as hosts?"

Prot shrugged and grinned, "Both are worth a try. After all robert worked out pretty well except for his disappearing act. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out how to make that not happen, or it will turn out to be just a flaw of robert's, hopefully one that won't follow his genetic heritage on to Gene JR and the rest of his descendants. Living on K-PAX most certainly will help. Less stress. Beth is certainly doing better."

_Beth! I had forgotten about __her!_ On his first return to K-PAX Robert Porter had stayed behind and an extremely depressed African American Lady named Beth had mysteriously disappeared from the mental hospital at the same time. The other Mental Patients had decided to hold an essay contest to decide who would go back to K-PAX with prot and apparently Beth had won. Prot had insisted to his Shrink he had taken her to K-PAX with him and now that we had a clear, beyond all doubt demonstration of his real ability to mirror beam it was becoming more certain that he had indeed taken her SOMEWHERE! I asked, "So how IS Beth doing?"

Prot grinned, "Fitter than a Stradivarius. She was delighted get away from this sad PLACE and that anybody wanted her enough to give her a home. She perked up immediately upon arriving, but she was still very sick and started to go downhill again. We determined she was very malnourished and also needed more of kinds of light our two SUN-STARS do not provide. We took to her to our library and taught her how to make a little house program for herself. What she came up with was very pretty. It came complete with a white picket fence, flower gardens, fish ponds, and a stone house with a lots of skylights and false SUNlight. We also encouraged her to go naked. That was not for reasons of lechery. We aren't even interested in our own bodies other than to keep them fed. No. The reason was because she is black. Her skin was designed to fight off too much ultraviolet light, just the opposite of what my WORLD's two SUNS have. They could not supply enough for your species. New york also did not supply enough ultraviolet light for her or for her mother when she was inside her. That was why she had such a tendency to depression. The insane way she was treated caused the rest of her depression but then her family was probably also SUNlight deprived and not completely to blame. So we improvised false Sunlight for her disguised as a beautiful SUNny spring day on PLANET EARTH in the south. Later she put her body in cryogenics and started using various K-PAX fauna as hosts which was fine with us even though we are short of hosts ourselves. That was the reason for my going off WORLD as a little tike. Being such a youngling I didn't have much seniority. I would have had to wait in line a long, long time to get a proper host. But EARTH was full of em. I came and had my pick and I picked a good one, at least until he started disappearing on me!"

"Whoa! WE can use YOUR people as hosts!"

Prot corrected me, "Beings, not people. Yes. Of course, and not just dremers, all the other beings on our WORLD and others. All you have to do is upload your operating systems to our library, put your bodies in storage and pick a host out, if you can find one. We are short, due to all the dead beings from our libraries who are competing with the live dremers who also need them, our dwindling population and the live beings who don't want to be hosts. Not every live being on K-PAX is willing though a whole lot of them are because we are so loving and fun!" Prot grinned.

I asked, "But you plan to use us as hosts mostly?"

Prot grinned, "Yup." your multiplicative talents will come in handy. In one of our generations, fifty of yours there will be plenty of you to go around. Unless we can lengthen your lives you will be short-lived hosts but good and plentiful ones. Our dead folk in the libraries can get out and stretch their legs or that is your legs, eat again and maintain the place. Right now a lot of our precious libraries and other structures are falling down due to no one to keep them up. Our dwindling population is starting to hurt our civilization" prot frowned.

I asked, "but what if some of us don't want to be indwelt and controlled by your kind?"

Prot shrugged, "Of course there will be ornery cusses like that. I kind of am picking with the hopes of picking the ones with the genetics to not have that character trait. But as for those, no one will force them because being in a host that does not want us is the closet thing we have to your concept of hell. Even most of them will chose to be breeders and even the ones who don't breed will be entertaining to watch. Its not like you are trapped there. You can come back here again if you are so foolish, or go elsewhere. No one on K-PAX is kept prisoner or made to do anything he or she doesn't want to do. Thousand year life span or not, life is much too short for that kind of malarkey and I can't figure out how even you humans haven't figured that out!"

I asked, "what will happen when there are too many of us?"

Prot grinned, "As I said we have better methods of birth control than you ever dreamed of." Plus I think in time you humans will do things we never thought to do, colonize some of the other WORLDS and MOONS and big, big rocks in our SOLAR SYSTEM. We certainly won't mind. It will make life more interesting. You will have to reinvent space travel. We don't have hardware space travel. But you can do that. We won't stop you. We'll get a big kick out of it. Those rockets are big fireworks."

_It is a rare day that I start feeling a little more optimistic about the human rare surviving and I never thought would be from a man who may or may not be crazy. But if he was right, and not just about to beam one hundred Earth beings into the void or to a very real world that could not really support them we might have a second chance at not destroying ourselves. As for the Universe, if it was that peaceful I could forget childhood nightmares inspired by too many hours spent at the local drive in watching pulp sci fi._

Danny checked his watch and said, "prot it's getting on to five o'clock. Do you think you could sign that paper promising us you won't teach us to mirror beam and get us back to MPI?"

Prot folded his arms and said, "I'll make you a counteroffer."

I thought to myself, "_ah oh! he IS going to teach someone.."_

He continued. "You buy me a whole lot more pina coladas, plus some other fresh tropical fruit. We stay and watch the SUNSET. Then I sign your precious little paper. Interesting superstition you have thinking every little agreement has to be on pieces of dead tree. But of course I will sign it because it will make you feel better! Than I'll beam both of you back to your cia headquarters, beam myself back to mpi, beam your cars back out of the parking lot. You get home quicker and safer than you would have anyway and with a lot less stress. We also get to see the sunset and the money you would have spent on gas can go into my belly as tropical fruit.'

I felt relieved. _The counteroffer didn't involve "__violating __the __prime directive"__ but more time spent in Hawaii!_

"Sure!" Danny and I said it together.'

_Watching the sunset in Hawaii. It's a tough job but sometimes we CIA agents have to gotta do what we gotta do!_

Prot did better than beaming us and our cars back to the CIA. He beamed us back to our own front yards! Needless to say our Wives and Kids and Pets were a bit surprised, as was one Neighbor Lady of Danny's who got the surprise of her life when her Neighbor suddenly appeared in a flash of light out of nowhere not five feet from her while she was watering her lilac bush! But our families were certainly were happy about it, except of course we couldn't tell any of them how it happened! But my Wife had watched prot's TV appearance and put two and two together and blabbed to Dannie's. Oh well!

Alison and the so called, "Secret Higher Up" who wanted to get "reelected" was quite pleased with the paper prot signed

Interestingly he signed it three times with three different names, "prot," "Paul Porter" and with childish printing, "Harry Porter." We had the handwriting analyzed and our Graphologist said he would have testified in court or before the President that all those signatures came from three different People!

Apparently this is common in Multiples even without the Alien element. They really are separate Personalities to the point even their handwriting is different! Only Robert Porter's signature was missing. Still in hiding, the original Owner of the body was still ditching his responsibilities.

When I went back to my office some Jokester had duct taped a big gray X on our windows and filled my top drawer with green silly putty. Very funny Guys, but eat your heart out! WE spent half a day on a beach in Hawaii!

8-)

Copyright. (Copy Begging)

Copyright (Copy begging in fact for ALL my fanfiction!) I saw what happened when the free Geocities web pages died. It was like Atlantis sinking into the sea so much culture was lost forever without warning! God had gently but firmly warned me ahead of time to save the Cupid stories at one of those web pages so now I may be the sole Caretaker of several Cupid stories because the Writers seem to be DDD Authors. (Disinterested in their own stuff now, Disabled by their flesh's limitations or lack of computer equipment or Uploaded to New Jerusalem already. I tried to contact them to see if they were interested in placing their wonderful stories at other sites but their email addresses no longer worked! I don't want my stuff lost to this Realm the same way if something happens to me and the current sites my stuff is posted at go down! Plus I will not live forever in the flesh and new sites will continue to be developed! So to preserve my stuff forever I give permission to anyone to upload any of my fanfictions to any fanfiction sites provided they do not change anything and leave my name attached. In fact I am begging Folks to! If in the Future someone wishes to translate my stuff into different forms of media including kinds not even conceived of at the time of this writing any changes necessary for that purpose may be made with my blessings provided the integrity of the stories, ideas and Characters are kept intact. Follow the Golden Rule please! "Treat others as you want to be treated." Remember in the Future Artificial Intelligence Technology will be used to bring Fictionals to Self Awareness and we will use Science to build Christ's Kingdom. (We are the Body of Christ according to 1 Corinthians 12:27 and all Carpenters use their Bodies to build things). Because Time circles due to General Relativity and Ecclesiastes 1:9 because the weight of the Universe bends Time and Space around it this has already happened so we are all being watched, always! A song sung at the Fort McCoy Pow Wow near Ocala, Florida explains this very well; "Mickey Mouse and Goofy are Spirits too." So we will all be called to account (at least socially) for all our actions, even for how we treat Fictionals! For instance a Villain might not mind being written to provide challenges to the Protagonists and killed off because that is his purpose. But he would certainly mind being written contrary to how he was supposed to be written!


End file.
